Daily Democracy

Ryan Blethen discusses the press, media and democracy. Daily Democracy is part of the Democracy Papers, a series of articles, essays and editorial opinion examining threats to our freedoms of speech and the press.

Maria Cantwell again proved to be an articulate and pointed advocate against media consolidation. She questioned Kevin Martin's logic about the threat of the Internet to newspapers, and using that supposed threat to allow for consolidation. She chastised him for using the Internet as a "boogyman," then pointed out that in 2006 newspapers had an operating profit margin of 17.8 percent.

I can imagine a lot of big media companies would want to own newspapers.

Martin, as he has throughout the hearing, said he has no choice but to go forward on lifting the cross-ownership ban because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the FCC to update its rules when needed. Seems to be his fallback non-answer, answer.